There’s a new TV series coming up very soon, made by Professor Brian Cox. It’s called “Wonders of the Solar System” and begins on BBC2 next Sunday, 7th March 2010, at 9 p.m. In it, Professor Cox ventures to some of the most extreme locations on Earth – including the tallest mountain, the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and the world’s driest desert – to paint a dazzling picture of a Solar System we are only now beginning to understand. Not to be missed!
Post script: there’s a children’s version of this series called “Space Hoppers”. It is being shown, also on BBC2, starting on Tuesday 9 March at 7:30 in the morning. More information here.
Here’s a brand new opportunity to join the Institute of Physics – for free. If you’re a physics student aged 16 to 19 in school or college, you can now join the IoP for free and get access to these benefits:
regular updates on what’s new in physics
exam and university guidance
information about careers from physics
the chance to interact with other young physicists
The stunt is performed by a guy who claims to have invented a zero-friction material. If he’s right, all of the jumper’s gravitational potential energy at the top of the slope is turned into the kinetic energy of his motion at the end of the ramp. Make some assumptions and try to calculate the velocity vector of the jumper at the end of the ramp – compare your findings with the gravitational potential energy available and decide if it is at least theoretically possible to perform such a cunning stunt. If so, how much higher should the start point be, above the take-off point?
Here is my own argument for a solution for the Fermi Problem renewed in the previous post. Click on the thumbnails for each page of working… compare and contrast your own submission, perhaps.
We have winners of the competition, prizes will be presented period 2 Friday in my lab, M211.
I set a little Fermi Problem for students yesterday – with the promise of a prize for the best written argument which answers these questions.
I’ll be judging the entries tonight and deciding on prizes in time for the last day of term. I might even publish the best entries here, but meanwhile, you can read an earlier version of this exercise (which was a slightly different problem) here and my solution to it is here (click to see it full size):
This safety label was included with a laser pointer I was given recently (funnily enough, at the Institute of Physics Stirling conference in June).
The label gives handy advice about the dangers of laser pointers, because lasers are concentrated beams of coherent light of one colour – in this case, it’s a red one. The pointer is used to draw the audience’s attention to a particular area of a projected display. The label also gives basic technical information about the colour and power of the beam.
Do you have any comment on the information the label is providing?
On Tuesday evening, I went with a number of other Physics teachers to the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, for an evening of information and practical observing to help teachers thinking about putting on Astronomy events in their schools.
We were given a history of the telescope and links to some very useful and interesting resources, which I thought you’d like to share:
Heavens-above.com (type that carefully) provides detailed information for observing all kinds of things in the sky from the International Space Station, Iridium Flares and of course, stars, planets and galaxies
Stellarium is a free open-source planetarium for your computer (Mac, Linux or Windows) which shows a realistic sky for your location
Finally, as well as useful tips for a successful observing evening (a hat, a red light, thinking about safety were the main ones) we were given a book recommendation: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Astronomy.
My Advanced Highers will be joining some others on a visit to the ROE in November.
Our technical people have made us a great new resource: a tube which is drilled with tiny holes. When we push gas through the tube and light it, we get a long line of little flames. Now, when sound waves are pushed into the tube through a loudspeaker, the resulting pressure waves inside the tube produce visible sound waves in the flames. This is a Rubens Tube and it’s brilliant.
This week we have almost completed the theory part of the first unit in the Higher Physics course. We have considered uncertainties and how to calculate them before getting down to some real practical physics.
At the end of this first unit, students are required to have completed a small practical investigation into something related to Mechanics and Properties of Matter. This is called “learning outcome 3″ or LO3 for short. We are conducting the practical component of the LO3 this week. Some are investigating the gas laws, others, kinematics.
“The only source of knowledge is experience” Albert Einstein
Einstein’s quote is rubbish, of course. But he has a point – from practical experience, you can really set your knowledge on solid foundations. This is the principle of having a practical element to teaching physics, where such facilities are available.
In the lab, keep your thoughts clearly on the basic principles of scientific investigation that you have already learned: only change one thing at a time, for example, controlling all other factors. Record exactly what you see: for example, the numbers on the voltmeter (indicating pressure indirectly) in the picture should be recorded with the minus sign. If a fire-breathing dragon should walk by your experiment, record the fact and comment on its relevance to the validity of your findings when you come to write up your report.
Your practical activity may be completed as part of a team: some measurements are difficult to do on your own. The report you write on the experiment, however, must be entirely your own work. There is a clear set of performance criteria which your report must meet and you must meet all of them for it to pass as satisfactory. You can find these criteria in the SQA arrangements documents, pages 26-28. There is a simple summary of what your report should include here.
Once you have written the first draft of your LO3 report, before you submit it for marking to your teacher, listen to this podcast tutorial: it takes you through the checklist of essential things your report should have. Enjoy your practical work: here’s another quote to think about, this time from Karl Marx:
“Practice without theory is blind. Theory without practice is sterile.”
